A Message from Outgoing StLGS President, Karen Goode

With the election of new StLGS officers behind us, current StLGS president, Karen Goode, will be stepping down from her whirlwind four years in office. For those who may not know, Karen was vice-president of programs when COVID shut down our society for most of 2020. We had a Family History Conference featuring noted genealogist Judy Russell already planned and a full schedule of meetings and classes on our calendar, since, like most, we had no idea how long it would take to resume normal operations. When it became clear that business as usual was not going to happen, Karen grabbed the reins, gathered a committee around her, and plunged us into learning how to do Zoom webinars. Her foresight saved StLGS from what might have been a devastating blow. After Karen assumed the presidency, hybrid meetings were an ingrained part of our programing, opening up almost all of our events to those who cannot attend in person. In addition, Karen led us through an office overhaul that included moving tons of furniture for a long-overdue paint job and new carpeting, and then, just a few months later, weeks of leaky roof damage and plastic drapery covering most of our work space. She was clearly the right person at the right time for the right job!

Time Once Again for our Annual Gift-Giving Guide for Genealogists!

Every year about this time, we publish our "Genealogy Gift Guide," filled with ideas for the genealogists on your holiday shopping list. We have a wide variety of gift suggestions. You can purchase some in the stores and most online. Something here is sure to fit the bill for that family historian on your annual gift-giving list whether you get into your car or shop comfortably at your computer. Have fun fulfilling someone's (or your own) wish lists!

A Preview of 2025 AND It's Giving Tuesday!

As this year begins to wind down, the StLGS Programs Committee has been hard at work getting all of our exciting events for 2025 in place. We are ready to open registration for the January meetings, we have a full-day Jewish genealogy seminar coming in early February, an Open House planned for March, and much more! We offer you a teaser of January events this week with much more to come as we get closer to the new year. And, this week brings us Giving Tuesday, which all non-profits, like St. Louis Genealogical Society, rely on for much-needed donations. Please read on for details.

A Thanksgiving Genealogy Gift and Another Farewell

StLGS bids farewell to another past-president with the passing on 26 October 2024 of Neil Fiala, who served in 2000–2001. Neil and his wife Barbara were active volunteers throughout the 1990s, and you can read more about them below. We also have a very special gift to all of you, courtesy of our intrepid "geospatial genealogist," Jim Bellenger, who has been working non-stop on creating maps for every cemetery on our website. This past week, we have finalized and uploaded about forty new maps, and the linked list below is a thank you for your generous donations to the society. Read on for all the details . . .

Officer Election Results, Exciting Website News, and Thank You to Our Supporters!

Thanks to all of you who voted in the election for our 2025–2026 officers. With unanimous votes, we will have co-presidents for the next two years as Kathy Franke and Jeani Ward share that position. Jim Yochim has been reelected as vice president for membership, and Debbie Benoit will take over as secretary beginning in January. We’d like to say a huge thank you to both Karen Goode and Cindy Finnegan, our current president and our society's secretary, who are ready to step down and hand the reins to our newly elected officers. Cindy has prepared board meeting notes, tackled dozens of thank you letters, scanned years' worth of old documents, and assisted at many of our events. As president for the past four years, Karen has managed to guide us successfully through one disaster after another. Her tenure began with a complete shutdown due to the pandemic, which led us to learning from scratch how to set up Zoom and hybrid meetings. After the office opened again, and we settled back into a more normal routine, it was time for a massive cleanup so we could get new carpet and a much-needed paint job. When all was finally sparkling clean and everything in place, we were faced with water damage due to a badly leaking roof, which shut us down for weeks again, and now, Karen is leading us through a complete redesign of our website. (More on that in just a bit.) Her leadership skills and her determination and perseverance in the face of one obstacle after another have kept our society on a steady course during some incredibly difficult times. We thank both Cindy and Karen for their hard work and look forward to seeing both of them enjoying some new adventures in the coming year.

And now for some exciting news about our StLGS website  . . .

Veterans Day and Genealogy

Happy Veterans Day! If you, your children, or other living family members have served in the military, we thank you so much for your service. If your parents, grandparents, or any other relatives in the past have served, this day commemorates them as well, and this holiday Monday, we are reminded of their commitment to our country and everything it stands for. Veterans Day, once called Armistice Day, is often confused with Memorial Day. The latter honors our fallen heroes, whereas Veterans Day was created as a way to say thank you and to honor living veterans. It is a fairly new holiday which began early in the twentieth century, when President Woodrow Wilson called on Americans to “remember the armistice,” signed on 11 November 1918, that ended World War I. His intention was to emphasize peace and to honor thousands of men who served in the war.

Voting in America—A Genealogical Perspective

With such an important election upon us, and with all of us who are of age and citizens of the U.S. entitled to vote, this seems to be an opportune time to look back at how our ancestors may have viewed elections. We know, of course, that many of our ancestors came from places where there were no national elections. Kings, queens, czars, and czarinas either inherited or took their positions without input from local citizens. When elections were held, they may have been symbolic only, and voting was often limited to certain groups of eligible men. Democracy was not something most of our ancestors knew in their homelands.

November/December Genealogy Meetings and a Reminder to Vote for StLGS Officers

Happy Halloween! We are coming to the end of another busy year of genealogy meetings, classes, and special events, and our StLGS volunteers have been hard at work planning next year's exciting calendar of events for you. Since the beautiful Clark Family Branch of the St. Louis County Library opened this summer, we have been welcomed by our friends in the Emerson History and Genealogy Center to a comfortable meeting room in the new building. Our November monthly meeting will be in our main floor meeting space but will also be livestreamed for those who can't attend in person. We have our last Jewish SIG meeting in early December, and one more class remains on the fall schedule. Also, StLGS members, Thursday, 31 October, is the last day to vote in our annual election of officers! More information about everything is below.

Sharing the Results of the Genealogical Hunt!

We love tracking down our ancestors through online databases, in courthouses, and at county clerks’ offices and can easily spend hours and hours in the pursuit. In the process we uncover the details of our forebears’ lives—birth and death dates that tie them to a place, marriage records that tell us who some of their closest friends or family were, and census records that show us the makeup of their families. Digging a little deeper, we can also discover fascinating details about their occupations, their brushes with the law, whether they left their homeland to start over in a new location, and much more. DNA has taken genealogical research to a whole new level and provides another tool to break through those brick walls we all seem to have. We learn so much as we are pursuing our ancestors, it's wonderful to pay it forward to others. Jane Theissen, our StLGS Quarterly editor, hopes to inspire you to take the plunge into writing for our journal. Jane writes . . .

New Naturalization Indices Added to the StLGS Website!

Almost all of us had immigrant ancestors, although not all of them chose to become American citizens. Necessary for voting and to attain some legal status, citizenship was not a priority for those who didn't expect to buy land, weren't welcomed by the often-crowded communities in which they found themselves, or didn't especially care about electing local or national officials. Prior to September 1906, naturalization was a function of individual states and could take place in any court in the country. The number of years one had to be a resident fluctuated over time, and there were no restrictions about where you had to complete the process once you started it. And it was a process. First, an immigrant had to file a declaration of intention to become a citizen; these were often called first papers. The next step, after a certain number of years had passed, was a petition for citizenship, or final papers.

David Rencher, Irish Research Specialist, to Speak at October Irish SIG Meeting!

For anyone doing Irish research, knowing where to look and what is available, especially in Europe, can be confusing. What records are there? Where are they located? How does a researcher access them? The October meeting of the StLGS Irish Special Interest Group (SIG) will feature all the answers to these questions presented by one of the foremost authorities in the U.S. on Irish research, David Rencher. Best of all, this meeting will be open to everyone and will be absolutely free! Read on for all the details.

October Genealogy Meetings and Time to Vote for StLGS Officers

Leaves are starting to fall and it's finally feeling a bit more like autumn. As our year winds down, we hope you will continue to join us for our remaining 2024 meetings and classes. For those of you who are members of StLGS, voting is now open for the election of officers for 2025. Our recent bylaws revision provides for co-presidents to share the expanding job responsibilities of leading our very active society. Also up for election this year are vice president of membership and secretary. Luckily, we have some talented and caring volunteers running for each position, and, although they are unopposed, they would appreciate your support by voting. More information about everything is below.

Did Cousin John Go to Jail?

As we do our family history research, some of us are horrified to discover that not all of our ancestors were law-abiding citizens. We may find cattle rustlers, murderers, extortionists, bigamists, and any number of people in our family trees accused of and possibly incarcerated for their criminal activities. Our first thoughts might be to skip over those people because of their misdeeds, but the notoriety of these ancestors should alert us to record sets we might otherwise miss.

Free Genealogy Webinars in September: A Gift from Legacy Family Tree

Who doesn't love free? As we move into fall and perhaps have a bit more indoor time than we had during the summer, we have received a gift of educational webinars from the software company, Legacy Family Tree, and the genealogy website, MyHeritage. They are sponsoring a series of twenty free webinars, called "Webtember: All Genealogy. All September Long," and you can watch each lecture as a livestream or view the digital recordings at your leisure. Here are all the details. . .

St. Louis Hospitals on the StLGS Website

Medical records in almost every state are private, and it is often frustrating knowing that an ancestor may have been in a hospital but not why or where. Unfortunately, we can't solve the "why" problem for you, but if you had an ancestor hospitalized in St. Louis City or County, we have made inroads on the "where." We have long had a page on our website for St. Louis-area hospitals with a link to a list of known hospitals. On that page, you can also find a link to information about the cholera epidemic of 1849 and links to two repositories that have microfilmed registers from the old St. Louis City Hospital for a limited number of years. We are pleased to announce that our hospital list now has been greatly enhanced by webmaster Jim Bellenger, who has also used his map magic skills on a newly designed Google Maps interface, so you can see where each hospital was (or still is).

Welcome to the Digitized Georeferenced Pitzman's 1878 Atlas of St. Louis City and County!

Happy Labor Day! St. Louis Genealogical Society’s volunteers want to help you celebrate this holiday weekend with a special gift to everyone, regardless of your StLGS membership status. Our amazing map guru, Jim Bellenger, has been laboring for months on an indexed, digitized version of one of the classic and beloved resources for twentieth-century St. Louis city and county residents, the 1878 Pitzman atlas. Pitzman’s New Atlas of the City and County of Saint Louis contains pages of detailed maps showing locations of specific landowners and many of the structures on their properties, as well as other landmarks, such as schools, houses of worship, cemeteries, and some businesses. For many years, StLGS was able to reproduce this atlas in book form for sale, but we have had to discontinue that option due to skyrocketing publication costs. The atlas was digitized many years ago and offered for sale by our society as a CD (and StLGS continues to sell those CDs in our secure online store.) However, never before has anyone been able to connect you directly to the page and location of everyone mentioned in the atlas . . . until now!

September Genealogy Meetings and Classes

And just that quickly, summer is almost over! As we look forward to pumpkin spice everything, shorter days, and, hopefully, cooler evenings, we are gearing up behind the scenes for next year. We will soon have an StLGS election for officers and will be booking our featured speaker for the 2025 Family History Conference, taking our annual research trip to Salt Lake City, and finalizing next year's busy program of meetings, special events, and classes. Meanwhile, here's what's on tap for September.

Orphans with Parents: Very Common in the 18th and 19th Centuries

Southside of Chicago, September 1897––Asleep in the street in a neighborhood teeming with saloons, gambling, and prostitution, a young boy named Andrew was “rescued” by one of the newly-minted social reformers on the southside and turned over to the juvenile court system. Although Andrew’s parents were alive and well, they were saloon keepers and not mindful of where their son was spending time; nor did they seem to have any clear plans for his education or future. Andrew was sent to a boys’ school, where he was deemed an orphan. Six months later, the now ten-year-old was handed over, via a train ride to rural South Dakota, to a Russian-German immigrant farmer and his family, with whom he spent the next decade and a half of his life. Andrew's story, and that of many others in our families was all too common in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Read on for more information.

State Censuses Can Add to Your Research

Although our August monthly meeting, Understanding and Working with the U.S. Federal Census, presented by StLGS librarian, Judy Belford, concentrated on the federal census, taken every ten years, mention was also made of state censuses, and what they can add to our research. Many states conducted population censuses in "off years," that is years in which the federal census was not held. Although taken randomly and in odd years, state censuses can often serve as substitutes for some missing federal records, and, for the most part, they asked different questions than the federal censuses, so you might learn additional information on your ancestors.

First of Many Cemetery Maps Added to the StLGS Website AND StLGS Members: Please Vote on Amended Bylaws!

Although we have had data on many St. Louis-area cemeteries on our website for more than a decade, we have not had the ability to add maps to the pages until our resident map guru, Jim Bellenger, turned that task into his own pet project. For the past year, Jim has hunted down whatever maps exist for as many cemeteries as he could find and has used his talents to superimpose the old maps onto new Google maps and georeference them so that exact locations of even long-gone cemeteries are now visible. Jim has worked with dozens of people in St. Louis City and County and beyond to obtain the maps, get permission to use them, and link them in several ways to the cemetery pages on our site. Because this is so time-consuming, only the first batch of completed maps is now on the website, but lots more are coming!

August Genealogy Meetings and Classes

In spite of the disruption at our office caused by ongoing roof and ceiling leaks, we continue to carry on with our scheduled meetings and classes. (If you didn't read about our water woes, be sure to take a look at last week's post.) We are excited about the grand opening of the Emerson History and Genealogy Center at the new Clark Family Branch that opened on 9 July, and we have already begun to avail ourselves of the library's new meeting spaces. Our friends there came to our rescue in providing space for the Irish SIG meeting on 27 July, and our first monthly meeting will be held at the Clark Branch in August. You are invited to tour the new facility, if you haven't already done so, this coming week. Read on for more information . . .

StLGS Office Faced with Extensive Water Damage!

The week of July 4th brought intensive rain to the St. Louis area, mostly carried in by the hurricane that blew into the Gulf Coast. For many years, the flat roof of our building has leaked sporadically, but this month's torrents were relentless, and rain poured into our office. When the first of the office volunteers opened the doors on Saturday, July 6th, they were greeted by collapsed ceiling tiles, soaked countertops, and dripping holes, some of which were directly over very expensive equipment. These first volunteers began to clean up and cover surfaces, but the worst was still to come.

July Genealogy Meetings and Classes

It's almost July 4th, which means summer has officially begun! Enjoy the upcoming holiday week, but don't forget to get out your calendar and make note of some of our upcoming programs. This month's general meeting will be our last at the Grant's View Branch of the St. Louis County Library system. With the new Clark Family Branch opening on 9 July, we will finally be able to go back to meeting at one location, now with ample room and state of the art technology! We'll have more for you on that soon; meanwhile, please read on for July's offerings. . . .

Last Chance for Some Group Photos: Can You Help?

We've talked often about how sad it is when lost photos can't find a home. At the StLGS office, we've been custodians of three group photos for several years, and no one has come forth to claim them. After a trip to the Missouri Historical Society's Library and Research Center, the photos have come back to us; the Historical Society can't keep them, since they don't know who took them and can't obtain copyright permission to make them part of their collections. So, before these lovely images are forever lost, we thought we'd try one more time to see if anyone recognizes a relative or has a connection with a group and wants one of the photos. 

How Did Our Immigrant Ancestors Get Here?

Many of us spend countless hours of genealogical research time searching for records for our immigrant ancestors. Our forebears arrived here either by land or by sea, depending on when they settled on this continent, and not all came of their own free will. We have learned more in the last few decades about how Native Americans made the trek from Asia, how early groups came north from Central and South America, and how those who arrived in bondage were transported in horrible conditions on overcrowded sailing vessels. Many of our people only arrived in the last few hundred years, and we find ourselves wanting to know when and from where they came. But perhaps we might also think about how. Clearly, they did not swim! What kinds of vessels did they travel on? How many sails or steam funnels were on them? How many decks? Most ships that our more recent ancestors used did not resemble the elegance of the Titanic, nor did most of our ancestors dine on unlimited buffets or have scenic balconies leading to well-ventilated cabins. In fact, most of our ancestors did not have cabins at all, but more likely single bunks and limited, shared eating and sleeping areas. Wouldn’t it be satisfying to find out more about the ships on which your ancestors traveled? Well, with a little bit of time and effort, you probably can.

Missouri Historical Society's Recently Digitized Atlases and Guides

The StLGS monthly meeting on Saturday, 8 June 2024 featured Emily Jaycox, librarian at the Missouri Historical Society (MHS), and what a treat she brought us! Emily has given us permission to share some of what she presented to the group, which we are delighted to do, and we are sure that once you dig in to the items now posted on the Missouri Historical Society's website, you will be hard-pressed to leave your computer! Read on for all the exciting details.

Spring Cleaning for Genealogy: Finding Homes for Your "Stuff"

What should you do with your "stuff"? We talk about it a lot, but it always bears repeating, especially as many of us are doing spring cleaning. Books, magazines, photos, maps, letterheads, where do they go if you are downsizing or thinking of the future? If you have willing family members who are into genealogy, the answer is probably easy, but what if you don’t? Where does the “stuff” go? We will try to help you with that question this week.

StLGS June Meetings and Classes

Happy Memorial Day! On this special day of remembering those who have sacrificed for our country, we also look forward to the start of summer. We hope you are ready to join us for our June monthly meeting as well as some Special Interest Group meetings and an upcoming class. Please read on for details . . .

Ready to Visit the FamilySearch Library in Salt Lake City? Come With Us This Fall!

If you attended (or plan to watch the recordings of) this year's Family History Conference, you were lucky enough to hear FamilySearch's Chief Genealogical Officer, David Rencher, talk about the exciting changes the library has undergone in the past few years. Perhaps you didn't realize that the FamilySearch library in Salt Lake City has so much to offer: five floors of books, computers, microfilms, maps, and more. Or maybe you didn't know that St. Louis Genealogical Society leads a group tour there every autumn, and it's time to register for this year's trip! Here are all the details . . .

Luck, Serendipity, and the Kindness of Strangers Work Together to Save Family Artifacts

Longtime readers of both this blog and our StLGS Quarterly journal know that people frequently contact StLGS after discovering photographs, diaries, or other family memorabilia. Although we try very hard to reunite objects with their families if there is identifying information, we aren’t always able to find matches. Recently, however, we have had some heartwarming success that we wanted to share with you as a way to encourage you to identify your photographs, write down and publish those all-important family stories, and reach out to help others when possible. Ironically, both of our success stories start with a woman called Bobbi(e)!

The 2024 Livestreamed FHC is Over, but Digital Recordings are Now Available!

Thanks to everyone who made our 2024 Family History Conference such a resounding success! We are so grateful to the many volunteers who worked behind the scenes to organize the program and to those who worked all day at the conference. Many thanks go also to the archivists and librarians from local repositories who came to share information with registrants, and, of course, to our members and friends who attended both in person and via Zoom. From the early hours of the morning to late afternoon when people with smiling faces headed to their cars, tired but happy, the day was filled with great conversations, an incredible amount of new information, arms full of items purchased from the StLGS sales tables, and many promises to get online and start practicing new skills! Did you miss it? Well, here is some good news . . .

May's StLGS Genealogy Meetings and Classes; Last Chance to Register for the Family History Conference!

Because of the annual Family History Conference (FHC) scheduled for Saturday, 4 May 2024, there is no regular monthly meeting. We hope you will join us in June, and we'll tell you more about that meeting later on in this post. It's not too late to register for the FHC! You can still attend in person or watch the livestreaming next Saturday. Plus, everyone who registers will have access to all eight of the recordings, which will be available for ninety days after they are posted. You won't want to miss this chance to hear David Rencher, chief genealogical officer of FamilySearch, plus four other outstanding regional speakers! Here is what is coming up this month.

Missouri, St. Louis, and Irish Offerings at our Family History Conference, Saturday, 4 May 2024

Last week, we told you about the FamilySearch part of the program for our annual Family History Conference, Successfully Navigating Websites for Your Genealogy, coming up on Saturday, 4 May 2024. (Did you miss last week’s post? You can read it here.) But, in addition to the three lectures that our featured speaker, Chief Genealogical Officer for FamilySearch David Rencher is presenting on the library and its catalogs, we have five more exciting talks scheduled for the big day. You can learn more about important resources at the State Historical Society of Missouri, the brand-new Clark Family Branch library here in St. Louis County, our own StLGS website, and fantastic sources for online Irish research. PLUS, all participants will have access to the full slate of eight lectures and an electronic version of the syllabus via our website for three months after the conference. Excited? Read on for more information . . .

Learn More About FamilySearch.org

Many newcomers to genealogy have yet to discover the powerful website run by the FamilySearch organization in Salt Lake City, Utah. And many who have been doing genealogy research for years may not realize how this powerhouse website has grown, especially if it's been a while since you looked at it. You probably know the Family History Library (now the FamilySearch library) is the world's largest genealogy library and that for the past few decades they have been digitizing, indexing, and uploading their millions of microfilms to their website.

April StLGS Genealogy Meetings AND Don't Forget to Register for our 52nd Annual Family History Conference!

Our Open House on Saturday, 23 March, was a great success, and now we have more exciting events and meetings for you to attend, either in-person or via Zoom, coming up soon. Last month, we announced that registration is open for our 52nd annual Family History Conference featuring noted genealogist David Rencher. Remember that early registration ends on 16 April. By registering before that date, you save some money and help us plan more efficiently as well. We are also pleased to let you know about some new classes and our April meetings. Read on for more!

We Bid Farewell to Longtime StLGS Core Volunteer, Edward E. "Ted" Steele

Usually on the first of each month, our weekly blog features upcoming meetings. Because of the importance of the following "In Memoriam," we'll hold that post until next week. In the meantime, please use the Annual Family History Conference, Calendar of Events and Current Classes pages on our website for the latest news. Also, registration for our annual Salt Lake City Research trip has just opened. And now, please read on as we bid farewell to a beloved member of our genealogical family.

Open House Brings Out a Crowd!

For the first time in many years, St. Louis Genealogical Society hosted an open house on Saturday, 23 March 2024, and it was a great success! It was wonderful to see so many new faces as well as some old friends who stopped by to chat. Our hardworking volunteers provided coffee, cookies, and soft pretzel bites to munch on and were available all morning to greet visitors, give tours of the office, answer a myriad of questions, and encourage people to explore our website, attend our meetings, and be part of the exciting genealogical community in St. Louis.

Updated Congregations Maps Added to the StLGS Website!

Suppose you had a female ancestor who lived in St. Louis in the 1860s, but you couldn’t discover her birth date. There are no statewide birth records in Missouri prior to 1910, and, although the City of St. Louis kept a birth register, compliance was not compulsory; hence, it is incomplete. Religious records would be very helpful, as births, baptisms, confirmations, and other life events were usually recorded by religious leaders and kept on site. You know where your ancestor lived and what religion her family practiced, but how do you know what congregations were active at the time she was born? A new set of congregations maps is now live on our website, and an exciting feature of the maps is the ability to see exactly which churches and synagogues were open in the city and county at any given time. Let’s take a look!

Orphans in the Family?

Sometimes, because we are so used to the way we do things, we forget it wasn’t always that way. We assume that if an ancestor changed their name, they went to court to do so because that’s what most people do now. We also assume that if a child was adopted, some well-defined legal pathways were followed––again, because that’s what is expected today. However, the reality is that names were changed all the time without anyone taking any legal steps, and children were handed over to friends, clergy, family members, and other willing takers, quite often with no paper trail. Orphanages held thousands of children who still had one or more living parent, and children struggling to survive in poverty were often literally snatched off the streets and placed in institutions, sometimes without parental consent.

Celebrate National Women's History Month with a Remarkable Scottish Heroine

March, with its promise of growth and rebirth, is exactly the right time for National Women’s History Month and the celebration of International Women’s Day this week on March 8th. We genealogists know how difficult it often is to learn more about our female ancestors, largely because for most of recorded history, they were treated as second-class citizens. Historically, women have lost their maiden names when they marry; they have usually not been heads of household; they have been under-educated and undervalued, all leading to their “disappearance” from public records. As far back as 400 years B.C., the Greek statesman Pericles stated, “A woman’s greatest glory is to be little talked about, whether for good or ill.” That mindset persisted for centuries.

March 2024 StLGS Genealogy Meetings and Events AND Family History Conference Registration Opens!

Spring is in the air early this year, and we are looking forward to welcoming you to an enticing array of genealogy events. We will, of course, continue to offer you the option of attending remotely, but we hope with the warm weather, you will return to attending in person. It's always so good to see all of you! We want to remind you about our Open House on Saturday, 23 March, and we are also excited to announce our 52nd annual Family History Conference featuring noted genealogist David Rencher. Here is the upcoming schedule.

Open House is Back! Come Visit on Saturday, 23 March 2024!

During the early 2000s, St. Louis Genealogical Society hosted an Open House at our office in Maplewood. It was held on a Sunday afternoon and always attracted an enthusiastic crowd. We enjoyed showing off our home base, greeting old and new friends, and sharing progress on our many projects. As time passed, however, and we got busy with many other events, Open House slipped under the radar and faded away. Then, of course, the pandemic shut us down, and even more years passed by without a way to celebrate our society. This year, we are reviving this fun way to spend a morning. We're changing it to a Saturday so more people can attend, and we can't wait to welcome you to our office!

Free Webinars to Celebrate Black History Month!

This mild and so far un-winter-like February brings us Valentine’s Day, Presidents’ Day, and, perhaps most importantly, Black History Month. Regardless of your cultural or ethnic heritage, if you are an American, then the experiences of everyone who has lived, worked, and sacrificed for this country are yours too. And the uptick in DNA testing during the past few decades has made it very clear that many of us are more diverse than we had ever imagined.

Another Goodbye to a Friend, Some More Upcoming Events, and an Update to the Photo Scanning Day

In Memoriam: Jim Bresnahan, Former StLGS Webmaster

As many of you know, the StLGS website is one of our society’s most valuable assets. Developing and maintaining the site has taken thousands of volunteer hours and an incredible amount of expertise. We have been very lucky to have knowledgeable people design and create our website pages over the years, and this week we lost one of them. James “Jim” Bresnahan was our webmaster for almost twenty years, and it is with great sadness that we announce his passing on 26 January 2024 after a long illness.

StLGS February Genealogy Meetings and Classes

We hope you are staying warm and dry during this past month of freezing cold and copious rain and snow. Even our friends and relatives in Florida are feeling real winter this year! We are so very glad we can offer you most of our meetings and classes now as hybrid so that no matter where you are or how nasty the weather, you can participate, learn, and continue to grow your genealogy research skills. We love seeing you in person, however, and hope you will come out and join us now whenever you can. Here is what is on tap for February.

Some New Year's Resolutions for Genealogists

As each new year begins, do you get excited about starting over? Do you promise yourself you will exercise more? Eat more healthy foods? Cut back on bad habits or continue good ones? Perhaps you have made some new year’s resolutions for those things, but have you thought about making some for your genealogy research? There are many things that all of us can do in this new year and those to come to enhance our research skills. Why not make a resolution for 2024 to become a better researcher? Here are a few suggestions for how you can do just that.

Honoring Our Ancestors Who Fought for Equality

This long holiday weekend, we honor the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who lived and died fighting for equal rights for everyone, regardless of how they looked, what they believed in, or where they came from. For all of us as genealogists, this seems like an appropriate time to think about and pay homage to our ancestors who lived and died fighting for equality and acceptance.

Patent Models Online at Missouri Historical Society's Website

In a recent blog post, we shared information on a little-known area of Google’s website: Google Patents. We discussed how you could check to see if one of your ancestors filed for a U.S. patent and the interesting information a patent file might contain. (If you missed that post from October 2023, you can find it here.) Shortly after our blog was released, the fall 2023 issue of the Gateway magazine published by the Missouri Historical Society arrived containing a fascinating article on patents written by Assistant Collections Manager Bryan Morey. Read on to see how the Missouri Historical Society’s collection may lead to some remarkable discoveries for you.

January 2024 StLGS Genealogy Meetings and Classes

Happy New Year! Before we tell you about the exciting meetings and classes we have planned to kick off 2024, we want to say a huge THANK YOU! to all of you who generously donated to St. Louis Genealogical Society during the past year. The outpouring of donations and words of encouragement we have received from you mean the world to all of us who volunteer for the society. Everything we do throughout the year is for the betterment of our members and friends, and we thank you so very much for recognizing that. Now, read on to learn what we have waiting in the wings as the new year begins. . .